Elementary Education Standards Three, Ten, and Fifteen

Standard 3: Elementary teachers have a broad knowledge and understanding of the major concepts in science.

Elementary teachers are responsible for knowing the science content that they teach and are responsible for conveying the material to their students in a way that is meaningful and engaging. Science is a subject that can be easily integrated and can actively engage students through the use of experiments and hands-on activities.  Teachers must know their content and be familiar with their standards in order to create scenarios that cover the content needed and to engage their students. Below are sample lesson plans that not only include a science experiment but also integrate literature.  I have also added a fully integrated unit about life cycles.

Standard 10: Teachers provide active inquiry experiences in the teaching of science by using various questioning skills and developing science processing skills (predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing). 

Science can truly be an engaging subject if teachers use active inquiry experiences in their classrooms.  In fact, many students come alive and show their true talents and knowledge during science.  This past spring, I attended the NCGAT conference in Winston-Salem and learned about a program called U-STARS.  U-STARS incorporates literature and science together in order to engage students and discover potential gifted students that are economically disadvantaged or culturally diverse.  The program utilizes science because it is a subject that allows students to showcase their problem-solving skills and their ability to scientifically evaluate situations.  Teachers can also provide active inquiry experiences by designing lesson plans using the 5 E format or by utilizing performance tasks.

Information about U-STARS

 Standard 15: Elementary teachers encourage underrepresented groups to engage in the schooling process, especially math and science.

The best way to engage any student in math and science to make the activities hands-on and engaging.  The best way to do this is through the use of performance tasks, projects that reflect the students own interest, or experiments.  As a resource teacher, I always try to enhance the learning that my students are doing in the classroom.  I like to design tasks that are meaningful and exciting to my students.  Below I have attached a math performance task and a reflection on how the performance task was designed and my students response to the task.  I made science relative and exciting to my students by using National Geographic Pathfinder. We read the November-December issue on Pandas and then discussed endangered species and their significance to their eco systems.  Students then used the WWF iPad app to do research on an endangered species and then designed a poster with information about their animal and why people should help save them.

November-December National Geographic Pathfinder